To meet the demand for wireless data traffic having increased since deployment of 4G communication systems, efforts have been made to develop an improved 5G or pre-5G communication system. Therefore, the 5G or pre-5G communication system is also called a ‘Beyond 4G Network’ or a ‘Post LTE System’.
The 5G communication system is considered to be implemented in higher frequency (mmWave) bands (e.g., 60 GHz bands), so as to accomplish higher data rates. To decrease propagation loss of the radio waves and increase the transmission distance, the beamforming, massive multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), Full Dimensional MIMO (FD-MIMO), array antenna, an analog beam forming, large scale antenna techniques are discussed in 5G communication systems.
In addition, in 5G communication systems, development for system network improvement is under way based on advanced small cells, cloud Radio Access Networks (RANs), ultra-dense networks, device-to-device (D2D) communication, wireless backhaul, moving network, cooperative communication, Coordinated Multi-Points (CoMP), reception-end interference cancellation and the like.
In the 5G system, Hybrid FSK and QAM Modulation (FQAM) and sliding window superposition coding (SWSC) as an advanced coding modulation (ACM), and filter bank multi carrier (FBMC), non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA), and sparse code multiple access (SCMA) as an advanced access technology have been developed.
When there is no data to transmit and receive during a certain time in a 4th Generation (4G) communication system, a mobile station (MS) enters an idle mode to minimize power consumption.
Typically, a 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) communication system according to the related art or a World Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) communication system includes a separate entity for managing the idle mode of the MS. That is, a paging controller (PC) of the WiMAX system manages the idle mode of the MS, and a mobility management entity (MME) of the 3GPP system manages the idle mode of the MS.
When a packet destined for the idle mode MS is received from Internet in the WiMAX system, an access service network gateway (ASN-GW) informs the PC of the received packet destined for the idle mode MS.
The PC transmits paging announce messages to all of the Base Stations (BSs) in a paging zone of the MS, and the BSs transmit an MOB PAG-ADV message through an air interface. When a packet arrives at a serving gateway (S-GW) via a public data network (PDN) gateway (P-GW) in the 3GPP system, the S-GW informs the MME of the packet reception, and the MME transmits a paging message to every BS in a tracking area of the MS. The BS receiving the paging message broadcasts the received paging message.
The PC or the MME is aware of the BSs in the corresponding paging zone or the corresponding tracking area.
When receiving data of the idle mode MS in the WiMAX system and the 3GPP system, the gateway for managing data notifies the received data to the entity for managing the idle mode. The entity transmits a paging signal to BSs in the paging zone of the idle mode MS.
A 5th Generation (5G) communication system requires a high bandwidth to support a high data rate. To this end, a super high frequency band (>30 GHz) is under consideration. However, since the super high frequency band is subject to high path loss, BS coverage reduction is inevitable.
Thus, the 5G communication system considers a small BS or a small cell, and manages macro BS coverage according to the related art using a plurality of small BSs. In this case, the gateway is subject to a considerable load.
That is, since a backhaul data rate of one small BS is high and the number of small BSs connected to the gateway exponentially increases in the 5G communication system, the throughput of the gateway needs to increase tens to hundreds of times. In addition, when the gateway does not normally operate, all of the small BSs of the gateway may not operate normally.
To address such drawbacks, the communication system connects the small BSs directly to Internet, rather than connecting the small BSs to the gateway. Such a communication system is referred to as a flat network communication system.
Since the flat network communication system is different from the communication system in the structure according to the related art, an entity for controlling the paging differently from the PC and MME according to the related art is required.
In this regard, what are needed are a method and an apparatus for efficiently supporting the idle mode in the flat network communication system.
The above information is presented as background information only to assist with an understanding of the present disclosure. No determination has been made, and no assertion is made, as to whether any of the above might be applicable as prior art with regard to the present disclosure.